The L.A. County Health Agency was formed by the Board of Supervisors in 2015 to better integrate the Departments of Health Services, Public Health and Mental Health with the goal of providing seamless services to clients and identifying areas of need.

The Health Agency’s mission is to improve the health and wellness of L.A. County residents through provision of integrated, comprehensive, culturally appropriate services, programs, and policies that promote healthy people living in healthy communities.

Through the aligned efforts of the three departments in partnership with clients, communities, organized labor, faith-based organizations, community providers and agencies, health plans, academia and other stakeholders, the Health Agency is positioned to address social determinants of health, such as poverty, addiction, and homelessness that drive poor health outcomes and higher healthcare utilization and costs.

The Health Agency structure maintains the fiscal and programmatic independence of the three departments, while at the same time enabling stronger collaboration on priority issues such as supportive housing, integrated health, substance abuse and behavioral health treatment to justice and vulnerable populations, recuperative care beds, sobering centers, and other services within a framework of initiatives.

The Department of Health Services (DHS) is the second largest municipal health system in the nation. Through its integrated system of 19 health centers and four hospitals — and expanded network of community partner clinics — DHS annually cares for 670,000 unique patients, employs 19,000 staff, and has an annual operating budget of $4 billion.

DHS provides health services to youth in the juvenile justice system and specialized medical services to children in foster care. Through academic affiliations with the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), DHS hospitals are training sites for physicians completing their graduate medical education.

DHS community health initiatives include Housing for Health, a program to build 10,000 supportive housing units for chronically homeless individuals, and Mama’s Neighborhood, a program to reduce preterm births for at-risk moms. Through these and other patient-centered programs and services, DHS strives to improve quality of life for County residents.

The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health is the largest county-operated mental health department in the United States, directly operating programs in more than 85 sites, and providing services via contract program and DMH staff at approximately 300 sites co-located with other County departments, schools, courts and other organizations. Each year, the County contracts with more than 1,000 organizations and individual practitioners to provide a variety of mental health-related services.

On average, more than 250,000 County residents of all ages are served every year. The Department’s mission — enriching lives through partnership to strengthen our community’s capacity to support recovery and resiliency – is accomplished by working with stakeholders and community partners to provide clinically competent, culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate mental health services to clients in the least restrictive setting.

The Department of Public Health is committed to protecting and improving the health of over 10 million residents of Los Angeles County. Through a variety of programs, community partnerships and services, Public Health oversees environmental health, disease control, and community and family health. Nationally accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health comprises nearly 4,000 employees and has an annual budget exceeding $900 million. To learn more about the LA County Department of Public Health and the work they do, visit PublicHealth.LACounty.gov, and follow Public Health on social media at twitter.com/LAPublicHealth, facebook.com/LAPublicHealth, and youtube.com/LAPublicHealth.